In today's large scale storage systems, a tremendous amount of effort can be expended in assigning management criteria to individual or groups of data objects. In many modern operating systems, such as OS/390 and z/OS, “management classes” are used to define the criteria under which data elements will be administered. Namely, a defined management class will determine how an object will be managed over a period of time. For example, a management class may dictate that a given data object reside on DASD (Direct Access Storage Device) for x days, then be moved to a compressed format on DASD for y days, then be migrated to tape and stored for z days, and then be discarded.
Unfortunately, the process of assigning management classes is often done by a storage administrator who has to make various assumptions about the data. Often, however, the storage administrator is well removed from the application side of the environment that generated or utilizes the data. To address this, prescribed policies and procedures are often put into place for application implementers. Unfortunately, such procedures are often not followed or completely understood, thanks to a lack of training, oversight, etc. Moreover, once a storage management criteria is assigned to a group of objects, the criteria often does not remain up to date with the application requirements.
Such problems are further exacerbated by the use of storage area networks (SANs), in which data may be distributed over a disparate network. In such cases, it is not feasible for a storage administrator to know how a given set of data should be managed. Furthermore, in such scenarios, disparate groups of users often commingle data, further complicating the process. Additional complications arise when one organization assumes responsibility for another organization's data.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system and method that can effectively assign management classes to data objects in an automated manner.